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MCCAIN WELL AHEAD OF OBAMA IN IDAHO, RANKING THIRD IN SUPPORT ONLY BEHIND UTAH AND WYOMING McCain leads by a 52%-29% margin “if the election was held today”. Further, a sizable McCain lead remains regardless of region of residence within Idaho, age, gender, and years having lived in Idaho. Even among Democrats, 35% say they would vote for McCain. Idaho’s 23% lead lags only behind Utah (39%) and Wyoming (37%) in McCain support. Greg Smith & Associates will reveal the results of polling work done on Idaho’s U.S. Senate race between Jim Risch (R), Larry LaRocco (D), and Rex Rammell...

Minnesota's delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver will support Barack Obama for president and say the right words of unity even if it kills them. For several of the ones I've chatted with over the last few weeks, it will. On Tuesday, the Democrats sent a former national chair of the Clinton campaign to the Minnesota delegation's breakfast meeting to urge the Clinton delegates to get behind Obama. "When someone puts a mic in our face and asks, 'What about the Hillary supporter, or the person who supported Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich?' We will say 'We are...

Rock Springs, Wyoming, Mayor Timothy Kaumo reportedly said that “it takes a community to raise a child,” as the Rock Springs City Council reviewed an ordinance proposed by the city’s Chief of Police Mike Lowell and the office of City Attorney Vincent Crow. Their ordinance is based on the controversial Monrovia California Truancy Ordinance. Apparently Attorney Crow and Chief Lowell didn’t realize that HSLDA successfully challenged a prior Monrovia ordinance that was struck down as unconstitutional in 1999. A subsequent ordinance that explicitly exempted homeschoolers was challenged by HSLDA, but the California Supreme Court denied review, leaving the issue as...

Oil shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock containing organic matter from which oil may be produced. The regulations would provide for a thoughtful, phased approach to oil shale development on public lands in the West. [Photo Credit: Argonne National Laboratory] WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of the InteriorÂ’s Bureau of Land Management today published proposed regulations to establish a commercial oil shale program that could result in the addition of up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from lands in the western United States. In keeping with the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Mineral Leasing Act...

Members of the honor society for the Boy Scouts of America who had to change their service project plans in Wyoming when the U.S. Forest Service instead allowed the Rainbow Family hippie group to use a location the Scouts had sought now are helping the federal agency fight a forest fire in the state. According to a report in the Casper Star-Tribune the Scouts, some of an estimated 1,000 members of the Order of the Arrow in the state, have "stepped in" to help firefighters in the Bridger-Teton National Forest fight the New Fork Lakes fire, about 19 miles north...

Colorado, Wyoming and Utah have more oil in oil shale than OPEC. Everyone seems to know that by now, but here are six things you probably did not know about oil shale. 1) Did you know oil shale has a smaller carbon footprint than ethanol? When calculating the carbon emissions of the entire oil shale process, without the use of carbon capture technology, its total carbon footprint is about 7 percent larger than gasoline. But a peer-reviewed article in the February issue of Science calculates the entire carbon footprint of ethanol to be 93 percent larger than gasoline. The article...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced it has removed the Preble's meadow jumping mouse populations in Wyoming from protection under the Endangered Species Act. The service said it is also amended the listing for Preble's to indicate the subspecies remains threatened in the Colorado portion of its range. "For Colorado basically nothing changes," A new management plant with a new critical habitat map will be developed by 2010... The determination is based on a better understanding of the distribution of and threats to Preble's meadow jumping mouse populations in Wyoming and Colorado

U.S. Forest Service officers pointed weapons at children and fired rubber bullets and pepper spray balls at Rainbow Family members while making arrests Thursday evening, according to witnesses. "They were so violent, like dogs," Robert Parker told reporter Deborah Stevens of the libertarian-oriented, Round Rock, Texas-based We the People Radio Network [www.wtprn.com] after the incident. "People yelled at them, 'You're shooting children,'" Parker said during an interview on the network's "Rule of Law Show." About 7,000 people have arrived at the gathering near Big Sandy in the Wind River Mountains for the annual Gathering of the Tribes, a seven-day event...

RIVERTON — Tie dye, tee-pees, and cries for free love and world peace. If it sounds like an image of the 1960s, residents near Pinedale may believe they've traveled back in time next week when a large band of "hippies" hold their annual gathering at a national forest near Pinedale. Federal officials began arriving in Riverton earlier this month to prepare for the arrival of the group, which calls itself the Rainbow Family of Living Light. Anywhere between several hundred to a few thousand members of the group are expected, and their arrival has already drawn the ire of some...

By CHRIS MERRILL Star-Tribune environment reporter Tuesday, June 24, 2008 > LANDER -- Since Rainbow Family participants have chosen to stay put at Big Sandy in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains, leaders with the Boy Scouts of America have decided to alter plans for a major service project that had been scheduled to take place in the same general area. > > Leaders with the Boy Scouts' Order of the Arrow have decided to cancel a long-planned forest restoration project near Dutch Joe Guard Station in the Wind Rivers, said Mary Cernicek, spokeswoman with the Bridger-Teton National Forest. > > The...

WASHINGTON — The fight over energy and how to lower gas prices threw the Rocky Mountain West into the spotlight Wednesday when President Bush urged Congress to repeal a moratorium on the development of oil shale. In a speech that spurred protests from Democratic leaders and environmentalists, Bush called for harvesting oil from shale rock found in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. The president also advocated drilling for oil in coastal waters and the Alaskan wilderness, saying the tight supply is pushing up gas prices. "Every American who drives to work, purchases food or ships a product has felt the effect,"...

CHEYENNE -- Federal officials began arriving in Riverton on Monday to prepare for the Rainbow Family gathering, which is expected to be held on U.S. Forest Service land in the Big Sandy area near Pinedale. A national incident management team made up of about 40 Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management personnel was setting up shop to deal with the potentially thousands of people who could turn out for the event in early July. "The Rainbow Gathering of Living Light" is a weeklong campout that has been held on federal lands around the country each year since the early...

CHEYENNE -- City firefighters looked like they were out of uniform on Friday. But they were making a statement with their new red shirts in place of the traditional blue that the department wears every other day of the week. It is a statement of solidarity with others who put their lives on the line every day for their fellow citizens -- soldiers. Cheyenne Fire and Rescue is joining four other departments in Wyoming and thousands of union firefighters across the U.S. and Canada in wearing red T-shirts on Fridays to show support for troops overseas. Many of Cheyenne's firefighters...

Like many Wyomingites, Jim Robinson commutes a significant distance to work each day. As might be expected, Robinson, the senior economist for the Wyoming Department of Revenue's economic analysis division, carpools to save money. The savings on gasoline once realized two years ago seems insignificant today. "More people are saying, 'If I could just get a job in the town where I live,"' Robinson said. The skyrocketing cost of gasoline may provide some gains for state revenue in Wyoming from oil production, according to local economic experts. The gains from oil production -- and more from natural gas and coal...

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- You'd think this would be oil shale's moment. You'd think with gas prices topping $4 and consumers crying uncle, Congress would be moving fast to spur development of a domestic oil resource so vast - 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone - it could eventually rival the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. You'd think politicians would be tripping over themselves to arrange photo-ops with Harold Vinegar (whom I profiled in Fortune last November), the brilliant, Brooklyn-born chief scientist at Royal Dutch Shell whose research cracked the code on how...

What is UCG? Underground Coal Gasification - a mining method utilizing linked well bores...

Conservationists who oppose the removal of wolves from under federal protection - and who call the delisting unlawful - sought an emergency injunction Thursday to stop the animals' killing. Last month, a coalition of 11 environmental groups sued the U.S. Department of the Interior in an effort to keep gray wolves in the Northern Rockies region on the endangered species list. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director H. Dale Hall announced the delisting decision in February, and it took effect March 28, divesting the gray wolf of its Endangered Species Act protections. Without those protections, environmentalists say, the gray wolf...

GREEN RIVER -- The prairie dog rises above its burrow on the high plains of southern Wyoming and takes a casual look around. Seconds later, the animal disappears in an explosion of blood and dirt. The self-described "shortgrass sniper" dressed in camouflage and orange chuckles for the camera and gets ready to fire again. With thousands of hits on YouTube, this popular prairie dog video by Colorado hunter Jim Bowman advises hunters to get ready for the upcoming prairie dog killing contest in southern Wyoming's Carbon County. The controversial, fifth annual, three-day "There Goes the Neighborhood" prairie dog killing contest...

Confronting Lion Was Breathtaking Experience. “I was walking this trail I had made, hunting for mushrooms, when I came across a deer carcass which hadn't been there before,” said Ron Olson... “I kind of looked around and didn't see anything. When I turned around, just to my left, there stood a mountain lion.” The lion sighting was officially confirmed Friday by officials from the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. It is the state's first confirmed sighting in four years. About 90 minutes after they set up the camera, four shots were taken of the mountain lion eating on the carcass....

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - An American Indian who shot a bald eagle for use in a tribal religious ceremony must stand trial, a federal appeals court has ruled. A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Thursday reversed a 2006 lower court ruling that dismissed a criminal charge against Winslow Friday, a Northern Arapaho Indian who has acknowledged shooting a bald eagle in 2005 during the tribe's Sun Dance. In dismissing the charge, U.S. District Judge William Downes of Wyoming said the federal government has shown "callous indifference" to American Indian religious beliefs. Eagle feathers are...

Battle That Gained Texas Independence Observed Today Today is San Jacinto Day, a state holiday observing the April 21, 1836, battle near Houston in which a Texas army led by Gen. Sam Houston defeated Mexican Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Historians cite it as the decisive battle in Texas gaining independence from Mexico. Sam Houston's approximately 900 men, infuriated by the deaths of about 550 comrades at the Alamo and the Goliad massacre, took just 18 minutes to win a battle that left 630 Mexican soldiers dead and another 730 in captivity, according to historical accounts. Santa Anna agreed...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a former Clinton administration appointee, announced Wednesday that he will support Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. Freudenthal said he was impressed by the large, enthusiastic crowds that turned out to see Obama when he visited Wyoming ahead of last month's caucuses. "They paid attention and were riveted and reactivated, and trying to be part of an America that's bigger than just their own self- interest," Freudenthal told The Associated Press. "And you hope that can work. Because something has got to dig us out of this morass that...

A booming energy industry has helped Wyoming's average income double over the past decade. In 1996, the average Wyomingite earned $21,875 a year and the state ranked 33rd for average income. Last year, Wyoming's average income was $43,226 and the state ranked sixth... No other state's personal income increased as much over the same period. Wyoming is an anomaly in the region. The top five states for personal income in 2007 -- Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and Maryland -- are on the East Coast. Colorado, at 10th, is the only other Rocky Mountain state in the top 10....

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that it mistakenly shipped non-nuclear ballistic missile components to Taiwan from a U.S. Air Force base in Wyoming.

Pentagon admits mistaken arms shipment 6 minutes ago The Pentagon has announced that it mistakenly shipped non-nuclear ballistic missile components to Taiwan from a U.S. Air Force base in Wyoming. It said the items have been returned to the United States. At a news conference, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said Tuesday that the misshipped items were four nose cone assemblies for ballistic missiles. He also said it was sent instead of helicopter batteries that had been ordered by Taiwan, he said. Wynne said the matter is under investigation.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Vice President Dick Cheney, starting a visit on Saturday to try to push forward Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, said Washington would never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security. Palestinians accuse Israel of undermining the U.S.-sponsored peace talks by expanding Jewish settlements, refusing to remove West Bank roadblocks and mounting offensives against militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip who fire cross-border rockets into the Jewish state. "America's commitment to Israel's security is enduring and unshakable, as is Israel's right to protect itself always against terrorism, rocket attacks and other attacks from forces dedicated to Israel's destruction,"...

Montana’s wolf population increased 34 percent over the past year, to an estimated 422 wolves in 73 packs... The wolves are nearly equally distributed between northern and southern Montana...although the bulk of the population growth was in northwestern and far western Montana... Wolves are still listed under the Endangered Species Act. Delisting was set for late March, but lawsuits are expected to delay that. As for conflicts with ranchers, the FWP reported an increase in the number of confirmed cattle deaths due to wolves, from 32 to 75, and an increase in the number of sheep deaths, from four to...

CHEYENNE -- Declaring that Wyoming residents have a right to defend their homes, Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed a bill Thursday that spells out in statute that citizens may use deadly force on intruders. Freudenthal said he supported a last-minute change to House Bill 137 that narrowed the scope of the bill to only cover intrusions inside the home. "I was troubled as it came out of the House because it went outside the castle," said Freudenthal, referring to the bill's common title, the "castle doctrine," which is said to have originated from a concept in English common law that a...

WASHINGTON - Borrowing a theme from the presidential contest, Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that the possibility of a 3 a.m. emergency call to the White House is all the more reason for the next commander in chief to follow through on President Bush's plans for a national missile defense. "It's plain to see that the world around us gives ample reason to continue working on missile defense," Cheney told the conservative Heritage Foundation at a dinner recognizing the 25th anniversary of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposed network of rockets capable of shooting down incoming intercontinental ballistic...

Hillary Clinton's campaign is casting her not-entirely-disastrous showing in the Wyoming caucuses as a victory. Clinton's campaign manager Maggie Williams said, "We are thrilled with this near split in delegates and are grateful to the people of Wyoming for their support. Although the Obama campaign predicted victory in Wyoming weeks ago, we worked hard to present Senator Clinton’s vision to the caucus-goers and we thank them for turning out today." Waitasec... I thought victories in red states, small-population states and caucus states were irrelevant...? I guess losses there somehow rock the house?

<p>With 96 percent of precincts reporting, Obama had 59 percent to Clinton’s 40 percent. Both candidates campaigned in the state ahead of the caucuses, but the onus was on Obama to regain his momentum after Clinton disrupted his winning streak Tuesday, scoring wins in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island.</p>

CASPER, Wyo. - Barack Obama was the projected winner in Wyoming's Democratic caucuses on Saturday, clenching a majority of the 12 delegates, NBC News declared.

CHEYENNE -- Gov. Dave Freudenthal on Friday signed into law a bill that prohibits government officials from confiscating guns from law-abiding citizens. Sponsor Allen Jaggi, R-Lyman, has said House Bill 57 was prompted by the confiscation of guns by police in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Freudenthal said afterward that he was pleased to sign the bill, although he didn't think it addressed any real problem. But Freudenthal, an avid hunter who was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in his re-election campaign in 2006, said he can understand why supporters want the bill enacted here. "It's not understandable on...

CHEYENNE, Wyoming (Reuters) - With a long history of firsts in women's rights, Wyoming would seem to be a state primed to put its stamp on the presidential aims of Sen. Hillary Clinton, but experts say that doesn't seem likely. They are predicting the western state of just 59,000 registered Democrats will back Clinton's rival, Sen. Barack Obama, in Saturday's presidential nominating caucuses. It has backed Republicans in the past 10 presidential elections. "While Wyoming has had some remarkable 'firsts' including the right to vote for women and some of the first elected female officials in the nation, our status...

ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. - This small Western hamlet, best known for a bloody race riot involving white and Chinese coal miners in 1885, might not be the first place one would expect to find the former leader of the free world. But here was Bill Clinton in southwest Wyoming, two days before Saturday's Democratic caucuses, telling about 1,000 people how his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would establish 10 clean-coal technology projects if elected president in November. "Some environmentalists don't think we ought to be doing anything with coal, but they're wrong," he said. "Think about it, you could become, maybe,...

“Since the early 1980s, oil shale was not on the U.S. energy policy agenda, and very little attention was directed at technology or energy market developments that might change the commercial prospects for oil shale.” That is a near quote from the RAND corporation in a 2005 report entitled: “Infrastructure, Safety, and Environment.” An additional quote states: “The largest known oil shale deposits in the world are in the Green River Formation, which covers portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Estimates of oil resources now in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels. Not...

The criminal killing of an elk underscores the need to restrict the use of loaded guns in national parks, Chief U.S. District Judge William Downes said Tuesday. "You took a magnificent bull elk in a United States park, then engaged in acts to cover up your crime," Downes said before sentencing Michael David Belderrain to four years in prison. "Your case represents a classic public policy answer to the question: 'Why do we not want to have people with indiscriminate access to firearms in a national park?' "And your crime answers that question," he said. "We don't." Downes' comment at...

The Popo Agie Ranch, just four miles south of town, has a 70-acre hay meadow which rises from an aspen- and cottonwood-sheltered river basin, rolling east and empty into the foot of Table Mountain. The meadow, and the adjacent 4,000-acre pasture, was once used for a modest but profitable cow-calf operation. Today, if visitors roll over the wooden platform bridge across the Middle Fork of the Popo Agie River, they'll notice a few corralled llamas, a handful of horses, but no cows. When wolves moved into the area, rancher Dave Vaughan got out of the cow-calf business... "As soon as...

A jackrabbit found throughout much of the West has disappeared from the Yellowstone area, although the reason why remains a mystery, a new study concludes. Whatever the cause, the study suggests the white-tailed jackrabbit's disappearance has wrought major changes to Yellowstone's food chain. Coyotes and wolves, which could have depended on the rabbit as a significant food source, apparently turned their attention instead to larger prey including young elk, pronghorn antelope -- even domestic livestock. However, because the rabbit's decline went relatively unnoticed until now, quantifying that shift is virtually impossible, said the study's lead author, Joel Berger with the...

Associated Press CHEYENNE - The House restored a critical provision to a self-defense bill Thursday, specifying that citizens have no duty to retreat before using deadly force. The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday had stripped the "no-retreat" language from the bill. But a motion to restore the language from sponsor Rep. Lorraine Quarberg, R-Thermopolis, passed Thursday in the House by a vote of 29-22. The House then gave preliminary approval to the entire bill, House Bill 137. It needs to pass twice more in the House before heading to the Senate. Quarberg and other supporters have said that Wyoming needs...

For the benefit of our country, I hope and pray respect for the office of the president returns with the new president in 2009. The abuse the presidency of George Bush was forced to tolerate has been nothing short of obscene. Just last week, someone referred to the president as "that bastard Bush." The former first lady, senator and presidential candidate gently nodded her head in approval and answered the foul mouth with, "Well, there is a lot of truth in that." For years now Mr. Bush has been called a liar, betrayer, dummy, bastard, fear monger, murderer … just...

Interior Department Removes Northern Rocky Mountain Wolves from Endangered Species List Contacts Ed Bangs (406) 449-5225, x 204 Joan Jewett (503) 231-6211 Sharon Rose (303) 236-4580 Joshua Winchell (703) 358-2279 The gray wolf population in the Northern Rocky Mountains is thriving and no longer requires the protection of the Endangered Species Act, Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett announced today. As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will remove the species from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. "The wolf population in the Northern Rockies has far exceeded its recovery goal and continues to expand...

**EXCERPT** CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - A bill that sought to make it a felony to harbor or transport illegal immigrants in Wyoming died Tuesday when it failed to receive the required two-thirds vote for introduction in the House of Representatives.

Associated Press CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - The memory of Louisiana police confiscating guns from waterlogged citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina a few years ago has some Wyoming legislators anxious to make sure nothing similar ever happens here. A proposed Wyoming bill would change the state's Homeland Security laws. It would spell out that the governor and other officials don't have authority to confiscate guns from law-abiding citizens in the event of natural disasters or terrorist attacks. The National Rifle Association has pushed similar legislation around the country following Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and the surrounding area...

Good Neighbor Forum is proud to announce Mr. Lyle Laverty, US Department of the Interior's Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, will speak at the: 2nd Annual Good Neighbor Forum Topic: Food in the 21st Century How policies including conservation easements, ESA, Water, Roadless, EU, precautionary principles and trade will impact your food supply. March 15, 2008 9:00 am - 4:00 pm For more information contact: Roni 970-284-6874 Featured Speakers include Mr. Lawrence Kogan, Esq. - N.J. Will address Precautionary Principle, European Union and more. Dr. Corey Ciochhetti - CO Will address Ethics and Essence of being a...

Police in Laramie, Wyo., Cite Teen Girls Who Threw French Fries for 'Hurling Missiles' Friday, February 01, 2008 LARAMIE, Wyo. — Three 13-year-old girls accused of throwing french fries during lunchtime at their school were cited for "hurling missiles," an adult infraction covered by city ordinances. The principal of Laramie Junior High and a police officer had warned students during an assembly the day before the french fries' launch that if they threw food, they had to suffer the consequences, Police Chief Bob Deutsch said. The warning came after school officials had heard rumors of an impending food fight. "They...

The results of Republican nonbinding straw polls in some Wyoming counties Saturday don't jibe with the statewide delegate selection results in favor of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. In Johnson County, for example, former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee came in first in the straw poll, while Romney was in fourth place. Johnson County Republican precinct voters chose as an alternate delegate Bob Snowdon, who is uncommitted and was the only person nominated to attend the national GOP convention, said Jerry Eastwood, chairman of the Johnson County Republican Party. Johnson County Republicans who contacted the Star-Tribune Monday, including Ruth...

CHEYENNE -- The results of Republican nonbinding straw polls in some Wyoming counties Saturday don't jibe with the statewide delegate selection results in favor of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. In Johnson County, for example, former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee came in first in the straw poll, while Romney was in fourth place. Johnson County Republican precinct voters chose as an alternate delegate Bob Snowdon, who is uncommitted and was the only person nominated to attend the national GOP convention, said Jerry Eastwood, chairman of the Johnson County Republican Party. Johnson County Republicans who contacted the Star-Tribune Monday,...

Sorry, Rudy: If an immigration reform bill allows illegal aliens to stay in the country and become citizens, it's amnesty, even if they have to pay a financial penalty. Fred Thompson spells it out in last night's WMUR-Facebook-ABC debate: (Here's a transcript of the ABC Democrat debate. Here's a transcript of the ABC Republican debate.) Earlier today on NBC's Today Show, Thompson responded to yet another stupid "when ya gonna drop out" question by refocusing on his key issues -- addressing the threat of terrorism and the looming entitlement crisis. When reporter Lester Holt pressed, Thompson took a shot at...

Romney Wins Wyoming Caucuses By MEAD GRUVER – 7 hours ago CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — Mitt Romney captured his first win of the Republican presidential race, gaining most of Wyoming's delegates at stake in GOP caucuses on Saturday. The former Massachusetts governor won seven delegates, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson got two and California Rep. Duncan Hunter won one, meaning no other candidate could beat Romney. Caucuses were still being held to decide all 12 delegates at stake. The win was a boost for Romney, coming two days after his loss to Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses and three...